UBC Centre for Writing and Scholarly Communication offers writing consultations on a variety of genres including the op-ed.

• Students may book a consultation with a Writing Consultant

• Faculty, Postdocs, and Staff may book 1 hour consultations with Dr. Patty Kelly

UBC Media and UBC Arts Communications will sometimes profile and feature work by humanities academics. Got an idea for an op-ed? They also provide support for submitting op-eds as well (i.e. helping you select a news outlet; editing).

• UBC Arts contact: Becky Potvin

• UBC Media contact: Erik Rolfsen

The Ubyssey, UBC’s own campus publication, encourages letters and pieces from students. A great opportunity for graduate students!

The Conversation Canada is a SSHRC-funded project co-directed by Mary Lynn Young and Alfreda Hermida in UBC’s School of Journalism. The Conversation recognizes the depth of scholarly research and therefore exclusively publishes content by academics writing on current issues. Their editors work with scholars on writing articles to journalistic standards for public readership. The Conversation also publishes work by PhD students.

• The Georgia Straight

• The Globe and Mail

• The National Post

• The Tyee

• The Vancouver Sun *submissions are subject to edits and length changes by the publication.

Electric Literature is a nonprofit digital publisher with the mission to make literature more exciting, relevant, and inclusive. They are committed to publishing work that is intelligent and unpretentious, elevating new voices, and examining how literature and storytelling can help illuminate social justice issues and current events. They are particularly interested in writing that operates at the intersection of different cultures, genres, and media.

The Rambling publishes short essays that are more experimental, public-facing, personal, polemical, or peripatetic than the kind published in traditional or peer-reviewed venues. They focus on the long, wide, and deep eighteenth century, so they consider pitches for work that may not necessarily be about the eighteenth century as well as pitches for work that evokes the eighteenth century as a state of mind or as a style rather than as an historical time period.

The Walrus publishes timely short essays reported from Canada and around the world. These take the form of reported narratives, memoirs, or small features focusing on a specific topic or issue. They demand a singular, focused argument and a strong writing voice—the author should have something original and significant to say. Their essays differ from newspaper op-eds in their breadth, depth of research, and quality of prose.

Examples

“The Delicate Balancing Act of Black Women’s Memoir” by Koritha Mitchell, English, Ohio State University. August 12, 2020. (Electric Literature)

“This Ship We’re In” by Eugenia Zuroski, English and Cultural Studies, McMaster University. August 7, 2020. (The Rambling)

“Untelling the Story of Race” by Joshua Sealy-Harrington, PhD Student at Columbia Law School. July 15, 2020. (The Walrus) **Written by a graduate student

“The Unpopularity of Female Politicians Has Everything to Do With Sexism” by Ira Wells, Literature and Cultural Criticism, University of Toronto. March 5, 2020. (The Walrus)

“How the Sciences Hurt” by Kathryn Croft, English, Wright State University. January 23, 2020. (The Rambling) **Written by a graduate student

“Why Quality of Life Matters, Even in Your Final Hours” by Paul Adams, Journalism and Communication, Carleton University. July 9, 2019. (The Walrus)